Proceso de Acuerdos y Co-Constitucion Tecnologicamente Organizada Participatory Assembly & Co-creation Through Technology
A framework for generating durable, community-authored ecological agreements using participatory assembly processes augmented by AI tooling.
PACTO (from Spanish pacto — pact, agreement) transforms deliberative assembly conversations into formal agreements — conservation easements, ecological service contracts, and credit issuance terms that communities define on their own terms.
PACTO is not prior informed consent. It is not a consultation process. It is a participatory co-design process in which the community defines the terms, indicators, and governance structures of ecological agreements from the ground up.
Communities already have governance processes and cultural decision-making rituals. Rather than replacing those with outside legal and technical frameworks, PACTO instruments existing assembly processes with technology that makes them more legible, actionable, and contractually binding — while keeping the community's voice as the primary source of authority.
| Problem | Description |
|---|---|
| The Consent Gap | Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) is too low a bar. Legal contracts are drafted by professionals, then presented for sign-off. Communities say yes or no but rarely shape the substance. |
| The NGO Industrial Complex | Fragmented landscape of NGO-driven projects creating intra-community competition, inconsistent commitments, and funding-cycle collapse. |
| Temporal Compression | Participatory agreements currently take ~18 months. PACTO compresses this to 2-3 intensive multi-day assembly events while maintaining depth. |
| The Surveillance Inversion | Most conservation technology watches communities. PACTO inverts this — technology serves communities, reflecting their own desires in the contracts being created. |
Read more: framework/problems-addressed.md
PACTO operates through a 6-step iterative process:
1. COMMUNITY ASSEMBLY
The community convenes using its existing governance
and decision-making processes.
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2. VOICE-TO-TEXT CAPTURE
Assembly proceedings transcribed in real-time.
Primary source material of community voice.
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3. AI-ASSISTED SYNTHESIS
AI extracts themes, priorities, points of
agreement and tension.
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4. FEEDBACK PRESENTATION
"This is what you just said about what you want."
Community reviews, corrects, affirms.
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5. ITERATIVE REFINEMENT
Steps 1-4 repeat until community consensus.
Threshold is community-defined.
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6. AGREEMENT GENERATION
Final synthesis becomes formal legal instruments
rooted in community voice.
Read more: framework/core-loop.md
PACTO creates a transparent, verifiable record of the participatory process itself — not just the outcome. Funders and verifiers can independently confirm that the community drove the agreement terms, that deliberation happened, and that consent was genuine and informed. This turns the process itself into auditable evidence.
Read more: framework/evidence-trail.md
PACTO is a companion to regen-network/agentic-tokenomics, sharing infrastructure patterns while extending them for biocultural participatory contexts. It is part of the Regen AI ecosystem.
| Layer | Description | PACTO Context | Automation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Layer 1 | Fully Automated | Ecological monitoring (satellite, IoT, baselines) | 100% |
| Layer 2 | AI-Assisted + Oversight | AI-assisted agreement drafting, compliance checking | 85% |
| Layer 3 | Human-in-Loop | Community assembly decisions (voice-first, Core Loop) | 50% |
| Layer 4 | Constitutional | Indigenous customary law. Always human, always community-led. | 0% |
PACTO defines four formal mechanisms for biocultural governance:
| Mechanism | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| m020 | Biocultural Attestation | Community-authored biocultural claims and indicator attestation |
| m021 | Voice Agreement | The Core Loop formalized: voice to synthesis to feedback to agreement |
| m022 | Living Contract | Adaptive agreements with community-controlled amendment protocol |
| m023 | Community Endorsement | Collective validation and endorsement by community assembly |
Read more: reference/mechanism-overview.md
| Pilot | Location | Key Feature |
|---|---|---|
| Siekopai Nation | Ecuadorian Amazon | Community co-defined biocultural indicators for jaguar conservation |
| Sharamentsa / Shuar | Ecuadorian Amazon | Contrast case demonstrating difference between participatory and non-participatory approaches |
| Matses Nation | Peruvian Amazon | ERA Brazil umbrella species method adapted with PACTO |
| Salmon Nation | Columbia River Basin (Cascadia) | Community-led salmon ecosystem health indicators |
| ASHA | Amazon Sacred Headwaters | Monitoring and evaluation framework for multilateral conservation fund |
Read more: framework/pilot-overview.md
PACTO goes beyond FPIC to establish genuine community authorship of ecological agreements:
- Co-design, not consent — communities define the terms, not just approve them
- Voice-first participation — oral tradition is the primary interface
- Data sovereignty — communities control their data
- Legal pluralism — agreements valid under indigenous customary law, national law, and on-chain governance
- No extraction without reciprocity — every use of community knowledge must add value for the community
Read more: framework/governance-principles.md
PACTO provides the process layer that gives biocultural crediting its legitimacy. A credit earns "biocultural" status when it demonstrates both ecological outcomes and verified community authorship of agreement terms.
Read more: concepts/biocultural-credits.md
Detailed mechanism specifications, pilot documentation, technical schemas, and implementation guides are available to partners through the KOI Knowledge Commons. See PARTNERS.md for access information.
- Read the Core Loop to understand the 6-step process
- Explore the four problems PACTO addresses
- Review the governance principles for beyond-FPIC framing
- Check the glossary for key terminology
- Join the conversation on forum.regen.network
PACTO is developed by Regen Network Development PBC in partnership with indigenous communities and local implementation partners. This repository is part of the Regen AI ecosystem alongside agentic-tokenomics.